aspergers and evolution

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i have this theory that aspies are part of mankinds evolution into the technological and modern age. one thing to back this up is the fact that aspergers affects males and females differently, male aspies socailly stick out as being anti social wheras female aspies are more difficult to diagnose because they copy the reactions and social skills displayed by their freinds. wheras males and females affected with tourrets syndrome are affected the same. some aspies also display encyclopedic knowledge of a certain subject or are acceptionally gifted in a certain subject e.g science, art, ict which may hint evolution from neuro typicals, depite the fact we are not a entirely different species we just display minor differences, but in a hundred thouseand years time aspies might evolve into something significantyl different. what do you think, is it just coincidence, am i completely and utterly roarshac insane, whats your opinion?

I think it's a "fun" theory, but I don't think anything bears it out as true. I'm not sure what AS affecting males and females differently would have to do with supporting it.

It's also a potentially dangerous theory, in that seriously purporting it could undermine support for the AS community. No one likes a tall poppy.

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, there's a reason (NT) humans are the way they are, which is: the (NT) human mind proved to be successful from an evolutionary standpoint--it perpetuated its genes well.

An interesting question, and one that could draw a lot of heat on these boards, would be: would a population made solely of Aspies be able (or would one have been able) to perpetuate its genetic information as well as the NT population has?

If you look at actual human evolution as a gigantic field experiment testing this question, I would presume the answer would be "no"; otherwise, the Aspie mind would be neurotypical, while minds like the NTs have would be considered the exceptions.

I *do* think AS minds or similar have been behind a lot of modern technological advances. It's been said Silicon Valley is chalk full o' Asperger's. The question is, will our power be used for good or for evil? With AS minds help humanity find a way out of the reckless overpopulation/pollution/etc. . . crunch we're in? Or will we just help code and design more crass crap for the latest operating systems?

If we ARE part of the next step in human evolution, who will be our Professor X? Who will be our Magneto?

(I get dibs on being our Colossus.)

asperger's is a mutation on a number of chromosomes within our gene pool, asperger's could only be classed as evolutionary if we started to outnumber NT's, breed more than them, and then overtake them as the main human species on the planet, this is how evolution works, the strongest breed survives over the weaker...such talk is dangerous and only seeks to segregate us all further within society.x

All human evolution seems to rely on survival. Technology is too recent a development to be an influence on survival. However one possible scenario might be that when a hunting party is ambushed or a village raided by marauders it is very likely that the person or persons who had traits of Asperger’s were alone, away somewhere else doing their own thing and survived when almost everyone else died.

Makes sense if you look at it along the lines of the theory of assortive mating, where the traits of the parents are adaptive, but added together cause a problem. Could work like a more complicated of the sickle cell anemia/malaria resistance gene does. One copy of it, and you're immune to malaria.. but without a copy of the normal gene, you're in trouble. Maybe for our nerd parents it's adaptive and good, but too much of it, and you're toast.

No.

ASDs do not enhance survival or reproduction to any significant extent.

My vote goes with this. I suspect that it has been in the human genome for a very long time. It doesn't seem to promote the reproduction of the AS individual, but people the individual is related to also carry the genes. And things that people with lightly nerd or AS tendencies do can be helpful for communities. Technology isn't really all that recent. The wheel counts as technology, as do spears and the flints on their ends which would take hours of repetitive work to make sharp. AS tendencies won't help the individual reproduce, but the technological edge in small doses can help communities reproduce which keeps the genes in the gene pool.

Then AS would not be an evolutionary step, nor barring some significant development would we predict that people with ASDs will come to predominate the population pool.

I agree. I think it's a natural variation, not an evolutionary step.

HAHA

I'm planning the NT cull already WrongPlanet will become a reality then again all we need is a projectile at light speed punch a hole in time and all of us can go to parallel earth and take that over
Then again I did think of albino world or Lumos isle but some idiot took that from me in 1940s, stupid hitler

Well, if we only bred with each other, than maybe we'd start to evolve away and branch off, but so far we all seem to still be interbreeding pretty regularly. (ex: My BF is not autistic) Also, I'm not sure autistic people are especially good at surviving. I think in a lot of situations, they'd die more than NTs, (There was even a thread a little while ago, and a lot of people said they thought they would have died if they'd lived in harsher times...) so it's unlikely that autistic genes will survive long enough and in big enough quantities to shift humanity towards a more autistic type of mind. Maybe it will shift a BIT, but humanity has been getting smarter for a long time, so I'm not sure if it will be autistic/AS-type traits or just general intelligence that will increase.

I think you're kind of thinking of evolution in reverse of how it actually works. Like, you seem to be thinking that a species sort of decides, in response to its environment, to move on to the next step and therefor more members are born with the necessary mutation. But really, a species is always taking all kinds of different steps, and the ones that survive most are the ones that dictate where the species evolves to next.

Last edited by wigglyspider on 14 Jun 2009, 9:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Depends on the type of evolution and how you mean it. Adaptation would be a more accurate term. It does seem plausable that the genes that lead to autistic disorders are adaptive when expressed to a lesser degree, in the same way as the sickle cell anemia gene is. But of course, people immune to malaria haven't taken over the world either. But the process by which more people in malaria-prone areas carry the sickle cell anemia gene is still an evolutionary process, I believe. Who knows, maybe some day engineers will take over the world! (Some could argue that they already have, I suppose.. but still only minimally pass on their genes.)
Of course, in the case of autism, I don't believe that it's a single gene, although I will have to look around and see if there's any research on what genes are likely to be responsible. My genetics is a bit rusty, though.

I can't help but wonder about "group selection" mechanisms in tribal societies. Humans are primates, troupe animals. If a genotype in it's partially expressed form is beneficial (in certain environments) it's spread throughout the gene pool.

Unfortunately this means that a small proportion of individuals have the genotype in it's fully expressed form, which might be lethal or severely disabling.

Humans are social animals so are capable of looking after other individuals, if they have enough available resources. Humans can work together and support each other, but only up to a point.

I also wonder about the niches available within human tribes.
Perhaps, a tribe could be viewed as a kind of "super organism" with different members with different tempraments performing different tasks.

Perhaps a stable society would require certain ratios of different temperaments and a upper limit to the number of people that could be sustained.

Perhaps there would be a few lone individuals with acute senses on the periphery looking out for danger, making tools, finding new food sources or communicating with spirits. Perhaps with the freedom to roam from tribe to tribe.

Whether or not certain genes are passed on or are beneficial depends on the environmental conditions.

One gene set might confer benefits in one environment, but be disabling in another.

I don't know a lot about this, but I do know that human beings individual don't exist in a vacuum. It's group structure and availability of support that influences any one individual's chances of survival.

Although it's all just speculation, this view does seem the most plausible to me. It's why I think AS traits have been in the human genome for a very long time. Evolutionary biologists have to wrestle with how something can be passed down even if it makes an individual less likely to reproduce. This does seem the most plausible explanation- that there is benefit to a community as a whole if now and then a few lone individuals have AS traits. Those individuals may reproduce less because of their traits. But their NT siblings and cousins reproduce and that passes on the genes. But, as it was put earlier, "too much and your toast". Which sadly another thread about an incontinent teenage boy illustrates.

I haven't read any evolutionary biologists tackling AS as such yet. All the speculation I've seen has been here. But evolutionary biologists have put out this same theory in regards to homosexuality: it obviously doesn't help an individual to reproduce but it must somehow be helping the reproduction of other people carrying the genes for it. They had to struggle pretty hard to figure out how it helps others reproduce and came up with the idea that maybe a gay family member here and there is an asset because they can contribute resources and child-rearing help without having any of their work be diverted to their own kids. It's a bit of a stretch. Actually it's a huge stretch. But that's what I've read from evolutionary biologists. But I think if you take that theory and put it onto AS traits, it works pretty well. (And maybe the evolutionary biologists will soon realize this and start writing books on it.) Like you said, the ocassional AS person would be helpful to a community in toolmaking (that continues today!! !), noticing things others have missed and spirit communication (stimming, probably, it can look mystical) which helps group cohesiveness. But too many people like that and the tribe would fall apart from lack of social cohesiveness and too much of the traits in any one person and you get somebody who is tragically too low functioning to contribute (unless they are lucky enough to be born into a community which puts a mystical spin on their low functioning and it gets seen as a person who is a conduit to spirits rather than just a non-contributor).

You need a Magneto...

The NT mindset (obsession with conformtity, etc) is very good for survival in a pre technology enviroment. However, whether or not it would be in a post technology post scarcity enviroment, and whether a pre technology enviorment could be done in a different way, is unknowable until we get there.

The trouble is is that the lineage has a tendency to terminate with the first LFA offspring. If they got nursed through this period, however, and the cause is of a particular type (say extreme emotions), then being able to cope would be selected for. As someone said in another thread, the eventual mindset would be Vulcan.

Ears not included.

I've often daydreamed about how I would "make it" as a member of a tribe, and I've concluded time and again that I would have to take the role of medicine man (or the like). In addition to possible AS, I suffer from a condition which causes chronic pain and an inability to sweat (Fabry's disease) so hunting would be out!